This paper discusses sexist symbols in editorial cartoons and how these symbols can affect thought processes and language structure. Through overgeneralization, women are portrayed in cartoons as small in stature and are placed in roles subordinate to men. Other cartoons present women as physically weak and needing male protection, or as being sexually well-developed. The presupposition here is that there is something innately different in the thought processes, emotions, and psyches of men and women. This paper maintains that extending these false images through cartoon illustrations perpetuates and reinforces the symbol after it no longer applies. (MAI)